In late Spring of 2022, we took on the enormous challenge of hiking from the East coast to the West coast of England in one week, via the Hadrian’s Wall Path. Unbeknownst to us, by hiking the Path in 2022 we were choosing to do so on the 1900th anniversary of the Wall’s creation, making the trip all the more special as we admired the well-preserved Wall sections, monuments and altars along our journey. We spent around four weeks planning our trip, mainly using the invaluable resource of Henry Stedman’s book as our main guide. 

One of the most important elements in the planning stages of our trip was booking our accommodation for each day, knowing that we wanted to use B&Bs instead of camping, making it even more crucial to book in our stopping points in advance. You may prefer a more ‘wild’ experience of camping instead of staying in B&Bs along the Path, but we can’t say we envied the hikers we passed who were carrying back-breaking amounts of equipment and gear on their shoulders. Not to mention that wild camping is technically illegal in this part of the country, and it is not permitted to camp along the Wall itself, meaning you’ll have to add more time to your hike each day to walk further off the Path and find campsites along the way.

For us, the benefit of staying in B&B accommodation was going into the trip knowing that we had a comfortable bed waiting for us at the end of each long day of hiking. Another bonus that we never took for granted was that breakfast was included at every one! This meant that not only did we enjoy a comfortable night’s sleep in a proper bed each night, we also didn’t then have to find breakfast each morning, and most days we enjoyed a hearty full English breakfast to fuel us up for the day ahead. Most of the places we stayed would make a packed lunch for the next day of your hike too, for a small fee.

While we may have pushed ourselves a little too hard on some days in order to reach our resting stop in time, we’re so glad we had our accommodation lined up for each day as finding places to stay along the Wall Path is surprisingly tricky. There are a low number of B&Bs, pubs and hotels in some sections, mostly due to the fact that the Path passes through some really rural areas. Read on for some of our favourite resting stops, and head to our full itinerary post for more tips and suggestions on where to stay.

Travelodge, Quayside

As we chose to begin our mammoth hike from the coastline, we added an additional 12km to our first day before we began the official Wall Path at Segedunum fort. (If you can, we’d recommend doing the same – there’s something very satisfying about saying you’ve hiked from coast to coast!) 20km later, we arrived at our first stop of the trip – a large Travelodge in Quayside. While it’s not the most luxurious stopover by any means, it’s a consistent chain and we’d recommend this Travelodge over other hotels along the river – while other hotels sit right on the busy main road, Travelodge Quayside is slightly further out from the hustle and bustle of bars, restaurants and traffic noise. We enjoyed a peaceful night’s sleep from our river-view room, which was much appreciated in gearing up for day two of our hike.

The Robin Hood Inn, East Wallhouses

After a 27km day of hiking along pavements, that eventually gave way to a steep hill leading us to our first remaining piece of Wall on the Path, we were glad to arrive at The Robin Hood Inn. We chose this traditional English pub mostly for its prime location right on the Wall Path, meaning we didn’t need to detour from our route and add unnecessary steps to our day. We had a few little issues during our stay, though these were quickly rectified (read more on our full itinerary post) but the pub has somewhat of a monopoly on the area as it’s one of the the only options on the Path at this stage. The main reason we’d still recommend it for a stopover at this point on the route is due to our room being so comfortable. Our ensuite bathroom had a wide range of complementary toiletries, and we very much appreciated the full bath to sink into after a long second day of hiking. The bed was large and the curtains thick, making for a blissful, uninterrupted night’s sleep – despite being on the main road.

The Old School House, Haltwhistle

Our arrival at this stop couldn’t come soon enough, as we hiked 32km on the hottest day of our trip so far. Paired with a visit to a very busy Housesteads fort (we had no idea we’d chosen school half term as the week to complete our hike…) we were very pleased to finally arrive at The Old School House, close to 8pm. While choosing to detour off the Path to Haltwhiste added around 45 minutes to our hike, something we tried to avoid as we carried all our gear on our backs, this small, 5-roomed B&B was one of our absolute favourites of the week. Our hosts were incredibly friendly and thoughtful, providing complementary chocolates and homemade brownies in our room, with breakfast the following morning consisting of an extensive list of just about every breakfast food you can imagine! They also offer to drop hikers back to the Path in their car, though we chose to tough it out! We only wish we could have spent longer here, and have since talked about returning just to appreciate what a truly special place this characterful, converted building is.

Brookside Villa, Gilsland

Another of our top stopovers, Brookside Villa is another B&B with fantastic hosts, where nothing is too much trouble. This was probably the most peaceful accommodation we stayed at too, as it’s situated a short walk out of the main part of Gilsland village. In the dining room on the ground floor, the hosts have set up a small supplies shop offering thoughtful essentials for hikers (think blister plasters and suncream) plus a few complementary snacks. One of the great bonuses of booking B&Bs over camping is that many hosts, like those in Brookside Villa, will also provide packed lunches for hikers for a small fee – we chose ours from a menu to pick up on our way out the next morning. We loved sleepily admiring the stunning sunset views from our windows in the loft room at the top of the building, before heading out to the equally peaceful Samson Inn for a good, filling, traditional pub dinner. A really unique sleepy village on such a tiresome hiking route, and a wonderful gem of a B&B call home for the night!

Wallsend Guest House, Bowness-on-Solway

This incredibly tranquil place is the perfect stop to end (or start) your hike! The hosts are very welcoming and the guesthouse, with 5 rooms, is absolutely immaculate. Entering the communal living room in Wallsend Guest House felt like stepping into a stately home! Our room upstairs was just as luxurious – a large, soft bed ready for us to collapse into, and we’d specifically booked a room with a bath in the ensuite so we could soak our aching muscles and decompress from a week of carrying heavy backpacks along the undulating Path. If you just fancy somewhere to lay your head and sleep, they also have 5 glamping pods available, each with their own wood-fired hot tub for an added touch of luxury to reward your monumental efforts, or get you ready for what’s to come!